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Bloodmoney

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Posts posted by Bloodmoney

  1. I've never done much personal research into this particular matter, but while examining save games, I got the impression that if your soldiers see an alien, that counts too - if you spot an Ethereal from behind (so that he doesn't see you), it still counts as if the Ethereal saw you. Actually, come to think of it, I'm pretty sure the game doesn't care if an alien spots one of your units, and ONLY cares about whether you saw the aliens!

    Could be, but my experience is a bit different. For example, some time ago I had Base Defence against Sectoids with Xcomutil base layout. Since it has only once entrance to rest of the base, I place my two soldiers in such postion that Aliens couldn't spot them during entering the corridor, and would get shot in the back if soldiers fire react. Results were like: If Sectoid was killed by Fire Reaction, Psi-Attack wasn't attempted. If reaction fire did happen and wound Sectoid, it was otherwise. If Sectoid passed and my Soldiers didn't react, like in first case nothing happened. Basically it seems that Aliens need to see your Soldiers directly.

     

    I have another assumption, that if the Alien(s) who saw Soldier(s) is/are killed, the Psi-Attack stops until other Alien unit spots Soldiers again. This happen to me few times. In other case, if an Alien who spot Soldiers is stunned, Aliens still can attempt Psi-Attack.

  2. It would be nice if you release the sources when you decide to completely stop working on UFO: Two Sides(I hope not!). I have one questions that was on my mind from the first time I saw this project. Will UFO: Two Sides be configurable like for example Bman mod for UFO: Extraterrestrials? It would be very neat if player could choose what new features wants or not. Adding option to play Vanilla game with only bug fixes would be a great thing, since new people to the X-COM could play the game without using Dosbox in higher resolutions.

     

    Btw. there will be possibility to play also TFTD, right? or mix them both somehow?

  3. I wish all those people who try to remake X-COM, start announcing project when they really achieve something (like two sides), like atleast 10% of game done. So far all they have to offer are empty promises. Still good luck to them.
  4. Any suggesions guys?

    I don't know how to help you fixing bug, but if you have a save game on Geoscape before the Base Attack, load it and see if the turn freeze happens again.

    Btw, I you want to play CE release, better download UFO: Extender and use it instead of Xcomutil, thought you can combine both.

     

    If you want to use Xcomutil only, better grab 1.4 DOS version of game and run it under Dosbox, basically I never had such problem like you with Dosbox.

  5. RTwP do have their merits and their place in strategy games and it's kinda unfair to compare it with Turn-based games..

    Why not? both of them are used in games that suppose to be tactical and not only, they even have some similarities. Heck, some people call RTwP an evolution of Turn-Based.

     

    Huh? Granted I've only played Aftermath in regards to that particular series, but in that game you spend way more time hitting the button to unpause then anything else (it'd pause for you, while showing a note as to why it had done so). And you could define your own list of what was deemed "auto-pause-worthy", too (though the default lists consisted of pretty much everything except "your troops have sighted a kitchen sink", so most players found themselves turning off many of these alerts). Heck, when it came out, the boards were filled with threads asking how to get rid of all the many, many pauses it'd enforce on players...

    I know, I disabled myself many pause events, because some of them were rather rare, and personally I find this system was overall poor implemented by Altar, like many other things in Aftermath. Still the Post-Apocalyptic atmosphere was done damn right. Anyway there are RTwP games that don't have many or at all pause settings and I was more referring to them in that case.

     

    But anyway, while paused, you could then set a queue of orders for every unit under your control, or create a new order queue if the situation demanded it. You couldn't stop a troop moving in mid-action, but you could at least get him to react as soon as he'd finished his current shot/step/reload/whatever.

    The problem is that such queue not always works, because there could be unexpected event that requires you focus on one unit, to save it somehow. Anyway it is impossible to co-ordinate effectively two snipers or whatever units under fire in RTwP, especially if they are in different locations. You take a look at one and oops, other is dead because suddenly rocket blow him up in to the pieces. Yes, if game allows to set up pause option for fire event then you could avoid it, but then the situation is like every fire bullet etc. towards your troops pause the game, which is not nice in case of having above 4 troops. In act you will waste more time to take care of everything then placing orders in Turn-Based game.

    In Aftermath the RTwP problem start when Reticulans had their Rocket Launcher, and basically spam the player with rockets in open fields maps (the design of map is also faulty). The best way avoid them was sending a very fast trooper to trigger AI to launch rocket at him and run around in some area until snipers took Reticulans down or they run out from rockets. How silly such thing looks I don't have to say.

     

    Apocalypse's RT system was much the same, though that game engine had TB built into it as well (giving a great opportunity to compare RT to TB). This did indeed show the modes to be quite different - the most obvious example being how RT mode nerfed close-range units such as the Poppers and Brainsuckers (which were potentially devastating in TB, if you put aside the bug where 'suckers couldn't affect prone units...), but to this day people still argue as to which way was the best way to play that particular game.

    I was expecting that someone post that :) To be honest I don't recommend anyone to give Apocalypse as comparison of TB and RTwP, since both are giving the feeling of unfinished and not properly balanced, like the whole game. Which is a real shame, because Apocalypse could maybe be not better as the first X-COM game, but overall awesome tactical game with many details that previous games didn't have.

     

    TB is not inferior to RT, and vice versa. It's a case of apples and oranges. People will tend to prefer one system over another - but neither is outright "the best".

    Well in my case I don't mind RTwP, so far I didn't have occasion to play any game with a really impressing implementation of this system, that's why I find Turn-Based or Semi-Turn games much more better. If someone has recommendations of really good RTwP games, share them please :)

     

    Of course, I'm only talking about RT in the context of games such as Aftermath and Apocalypse (RTwP style, as you put it - though I'm not sure it's an adequate description for how they handle it). In many other RTS games, the ability to give orders while the game is paused is frowned upon, and the option to have the game automatically pause for you is near unheard of.

    Well my comment was more regarding more tactical games then RTS, it would be very flippant of me to compare them to X-COM/Tactical games.

  6. Turn based is just the method for combat used back then, it was the only one appropriate for that time and age.

    Are you trolling or just repeat what Kotaku and other smart & modern journalist say? Turn-Based mode allows much better tactical gameplay then any RTwP system. See how UFO: AfterSeries offer pretty low creativty & possibility comparing to X-COM: EU/TFTD. In RTwP it impossible to properly control whole squad without smashing space to freeze a game, and even them your & troops effectivnes is decreasing. In the end, you end up more time on smashing poor spacebar then giving orders in Turn-Based. For example, when three of your snipers are attacked in the same moment there is a large chance that something bad happens to one or two of them, because you are not just able to take care of all of them at once, without sweating your butt. In Turn-Based you have control at everything and most importantly, enough time to think what you would be best to do in some situation. If you fail you can either blame yourself for mistake or just have bad luck.

  7. I dunno, I thought pretty much all the European releases of UFO used XCOM... At least, that's what my Sold Out Software release uses. Granted though, X-COM was well in place by the time of the sequel.

    From what I read, Microprose introduced the X-COM title so people would connect the game to the X-Files TV Show, which was very popular in that time.

     

    Thanks also for explaining the Metroid sequel situation, Bomb Bloke.

  8. See, this is what I hate.

    Not people worried. People saying, basically that nothing would satisfy them, and then claiming, when called on it, all they want is X-Com, but really X-Com, which turns out to mean the original game exactly. Maybe with a graphics tweak, but the exact nature of those tweaks, or minor glitch fixes, or other modifications is never clear.

    When I listen to X band I expect to hear similar kind of music like they did before. When I want do drink X beer I expect a typical taste of such beer. When I want to play X-COM I expect strategy with Turn-Based combat, since hey, this series from begging where all about it. I don't want the identical everything like in previous ones, no.

     

    Which, you know, one of, if not the best game(s) ever, but it's already out there.

    Then why don't start new franchise instead of milking down this one?

     

    Look. I'm cautiously optimistic, but I'm willing to admit there's dozens of ways for this to be a turd sammich. And people making your arguments, generally, won't admit that any change could lead, in any way, lead to a good game in a billion years.

    Well maybe because people like me are playing games for more then 10 years and see how gaming market have changed, especially after experiencing more then one ripped franchise. There a difference in being optimistic and naive (I'm not saying that you are). They wan't do FPS, fine with me, but please don't stick it to X-COM (already violated) franchise. Btw. I wouldn't be surprised if the game was aimed towards Bioshock games fans.

     

    Now, you, personally, might just be of the position that the odds of a FPS X-Com being, well, X-Com are worse than winning the lottery and being hit by lightning at once. Fine and fair, and probably more rational then my position. But it's sounding like you're the kinda guy who didn't think Metroid Prime would work at all, and then claims the situation was entirely different every time they do pull it off, or insists that, say, Fallout 3 totally sucked rather than, you know, not being your cup of tea but a tolerable game on its own merits.

    I never played Metroid Prime or was interested in it so I'm a bit :) about this. About Fallout 3 it would take some time to explain what I don't like about it and well it's not discussion/board about FO3. Maybe other day thought :)

    The thing that plagues modern FPS are single-corridor like levels, auto-regenerating health or quest compass, which are not my cup of tea. Since it is some kind of standard in modern games, the odds that the same crap will be in this game are pretty high.

     

    I'm probably reading you entirely wrong, and I apologize in the likely case of that, well, being the case. But I do prefer that the possibility of this maybe being sorta good is left on the table.

    Honestly I don't think so. Gaming from "geek stuff" turned in $$ business, where Publishers don't have even a bit respect for Developers or Franchises. Yeah, in the past when X-COM was released it wasn't much better, but still Publishers tried to keep continuations in the same genre.

  9. I love the internet. All we really know is what's on that site, and yet already people are having heart attacks.
    I loved it also. Another crappy game in franchise which don't belong to the same genre like original ones, yet people are excited about it.
  10. Long time I wasn't here, good to see new beta versions.

     

    I cant fix all the bugs. while it is possible to remove the hostility flag from a mind controlled civilian on a saved game. that doesn't help unless you save an exit the game. It is possible to adjust the points for killing said human on completion of combat. I'm not sure what your referring to with the other two bugs. I will look at implementing as many bug fixes as I can on the next release. I added those minor file fixes that were pre-packaged in the file sections as it was an easy thing to do.

    Cool, I hope you fix so many bugs as Seb76 did.

     

    Btw. I have some strange glitch in from 305 beta under DosBox:

    https://img689.imageshack.us/img689/285/tactical000.th.png

     

    The Elerium-115 is "above" UFO Power Source, when it should be under. I didn't have such glitch in pre-305 beta version as far I remember.

  11. SectoidEmperor, Cyberdisc's (surface) and Chryssalid's (underground) also.

     

    I always find that UFO:EU shouldn't have any sequel, since after defeating the Aliens X-Com had access to such technology, that almost nothing could stop humanity. TFTD and Apoc devs did basically ignore this to make sequels...

  12. Again I disagree. Even if you had Plasma Weapons, Auto-Canon, Rocket Launcher (both of having splash damage type of ammo) or Laser Rifle could be successfully mixed with Heavy Plasma (I did this many times). What about TFTD? You stick to mix of Sonic Weapons, this is not how incline should look. If TFTD devs remade weapon system for something different, then they could achieve something much better, thought maybe if they had more time they could probably make proper balance.
  13. a slightly better weapon balance (albeit some are useless now e.g. Rocket/Torpedo Launcher), melee combat weapons, stronger enemies and more terrain.

    I disagree completely, TFTD is great example how looks bad balance. Human weapons & ammo are so nerfed comparing to those in EU, that they are not even worth taking on mission. I think that only Heavy or Auto Cannon resemble get boosted. Gauss Gun technology gets also useless pretty fast (most of Aliens are very resistant, up to 90%(!)), basically you can just go straight for the Alien Tech. When in EU every equipment can be used successfully, you can't say that about TFTD, and this is the biggest issue for me.

  14. It would appear Seb76's loader deals with all these things. Only works with the CE version of the game, but it can be used with XcomUtil.

    I'm using Linux most of the time, and getting Seb76's patch working with Wine would be tiresome. Also what BladeFireLight said. Still I respect Seb76 great work, just it's a shame that patch don't work with DOS version.

     

    Some few other suggestions, that I just forgot to mention last time:

    Random UFO interiors/shapes - It would be nice if the size of UFOs didn't change, just make the small UFOs stick to small size. Sometime ago I shoot-down small UFOs and in mission it had size of an Battleship. Honestly I find this a bit too much, when you have about 6 aliens to kill. Second nice change would be making UFO exterior doors avoid placement in corners. it looks really weird. Making generator always place UFO wall by the corners would be nice, but I'm not sure if it broke UFO interior generating mechanic.... Also it seems that Xcomutil don't generate UFOs walls with windows.

     

    Btw. BladeFireLight are you planing to fix other bugs, like radar related (I think BomberBloke made some python fix for that and civilian mind control, between base transfer and Elerium ship bug? To be honest, this few bugs and the other I mentioned are most irritating.

  15. First, thank you very much BladeFireLight, for releasing new version of Xcomutil. Now let's get to the business:

    Few noticed bugs in 221 build, on Dosbox 0.72 with UFO:EU 1.4:

     

    1# BFG and random UFO shapes & interiors every battle don't work properly, all have standard shapes.

    2# Prompt for terrain and random craft is not visible under Dosbox. In places where should be letters are black boxes.

     

    I'm not sure if this is bug, but it seems that after two missions Xcomutil starts saving soldiers equipment info.

     

    Few suggestion:

    Make BFG more configurable. Currently player can have tacical part of game on every terrain, even Cydonia or X-COM/Aliens Base or Artic terrain in desert... Nice solution would be giving player a choice of few options for that, example:

    Basic - Cydonia terrains, X-COM/Alien bases/cities are excluded, Artic/Dessert terrains are always in same places as they been intended by creators. Rest without changes.

    Full - like currently is.

     

    Now few questions:

    Will future version include additional bug fixes? (Proximity Grenade, pay for dirt etc.) or new features? (ex. ability to open doors like in TFTD for UD).

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